Big Idea: Disobedience can bring about forfeiture of God’s blessings.

Understanding the Text

Numbers 14 constitutes the tragic climax of the Israelites’ grumbling and rebelliousness. They send scouts into the land (Num. 13), but the majority have concluded that the enemy is too powerful to conquer. The people are again in revolt and ready to go back to Egypt (Num. 14:1–9). This rebellion will come to be listed as pivotal in Israel’s failure to live up to its calling and achieve its goal of entering the land (Deut. 1:26–45). God threatens to annihilate Israel as he threatened previously during the incident of the golden calf (Exod. 32:10; Num. 14:12), for these two events represent the most egregious moral failures of Israel in the desert.

Interpretive Insights

14:1–4 the community . . . wept . …